Yep, I'm in trouble again . I've been having no trouble rendering off my animations using HDRI's and final gather, they look lovely. However I'm having a lot of trouble lighting this hangar scene. I'm just not getting the results I need. Here are the two kinds of render I'm getting, and I'm aiming for something in between.

Rendered in mental ray using production settings with final gather, detail shadow maps in 512 res in segments with an area light (non mental ray area light, just cant get the hang of them AT ALL .) As you canh see the lighting itself is OK, but the shadows are plain awful.

This one is rendered in mental ray using the same settings as above with final gather. However this has no lights in the scene and is using a white camera environment. Lovely soft shadows, but its too dark and doesnt really represent the halogen style lights in the hangar.

I do get nicer results using a directional light but again thats not the kind of light I want in there.

I'm stumped. Anyone have any suggestions?

mechis

520 posts

01 Apr 2008

Maybe you could try changing the size of your area light and seeing how that changes things? I'm not great at lighting at all, but I know that the size of the area light matters. Or maybe you could try replacing the area light with a couple spot lights.

if you were working in vray i'd know how to help ya, but sadly i dont know mental ray all that well one thing i would suggest is rendering in multiple layers. have a beauty pass where u have the lights in there, and then render an ambient occlusion pass and composite them together in photoshop. that should be able to give you that inbetween look you're looking for, at least with some tweaks in PS.

GCastro

18 posts

02 Apr 2008

Can't you combine the two processes? That's what i've been doing. Using IBL or final gather to get the fill light but also using spot lights etc... to get an artistic control over the images.

You could also increase the color gain beyond 1 and have it be even brighter with the final gather.

Check out this demo clip of a gnomon class on rendering 2 by Jeremy Engleman:

Thanks guys, some really good ideas there. I'm going to try again tonight, using diferent passes and settings. I really don't think I'll get the look I want from a beauty render.

GCastro

18 posts

03 Apr 2008

Cool man. I really hope you do check out that clip as it really pertains to what you're doing. The model looks awesome!

Will J

215 posts

03 Apr 2008

Ok I've solved the problem, thanks so much for all your help guys ! I'm very close to finishing now so I'll put up my final anims and images soon.

mechis

520 posts

03 Apr 2008

What did you do differently?~Mechis

Will J

215 posts

04 Apr 2008

In the mental ray settings I maxed out the ray-trace quality settings (I'm running dual quad-cores here so it's not too painful!) and increased the shadow samples and final gather accuracy. But the biggest difference was putting the depth map shadow resolution to 2048 and increasing the filter size to 5 or so. Thats did the trick. I made the mistake of reading up tons on mental ray and forgetting to get the basic software settings right. Lesson well learned >_<.

MASSIVE improvement. What I need to do now is work out some nice angles for still renders and perhaps experiment with different lenses. I would also love to add some volumetric fog to where the sunlight enters the hangar, but I've no experience with that. I'll play around with some volume materials, but if anyone has any good ideas or tuts, fire away !

if there is only one thing i should say, is that you need reflection on the helicopter... right now it looks as if it absorbs light... where as in really life, it would reflect it (try somthing like a car shader or somthing)

keep it up

mechis

520 posts

04 Apr 2008

yeah, looking good. Maybe still a little dark, but I guess it depends on what time of day you're going for. Looks like it's around sunset in your picture. Good stuff.~Mechis

Will J

215 posts

04 Apr 2008

Thanks guys . Yes I'm going for a suset look, my tutor commented today that it looked very sinister in that light haha. Richard, I considered reflectivity while i was making the shaders, but i found throughout all the research the paint on the real chopper is as matt as matt can possibly matt matt (it's very matt.) It's meant to reflect as little as possible to reduce it's visibility, and I decided to stay faithful to that, rather than go the more aesthetically pleasing way. But you are right, it would look nicer. I will try to test a more reflective version to see how it looks.I'm just rendering from many angles now, so I can pick the best few renders at the end. Oh and mechis it was too dark as you said so I added a subtle spot light over it. Looks much better now .

mechis

520 posts

04 Apr 2008

You should also think about where you place that bright spot on the helicopter b/c my eye is instantly drawn to it. Where it is now, is kind of a boring place... maybe try putting it up closer to the front where you have more detail

Also, I checked out a youtube video of some helicopters (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ekoohjtQl1I) and while it's mostly matte like you said, sometimes there is a slight specular. Also, you can put in reflection/specular on the glass panels.~Mechis

wow will the last render looks really awsum! you really got the twist!

Will J

215 posts

04 Apr 2008

I stuck a newer render up here to see what people thought. I followed your advice with the fall of the light mechis, looks way better now. This is really close to being finished now . Oh and I'm going to reduce the bump on the concrete slightly and lower the saturation of the yellow. I've been getting some really great renders off this!

mahmoudnahmad

1,159 posts

05 Apr 2008

try to render one from the bottom side showing the copter and in the distance the flashy sun and volumetric lights, just a thought i like your renders nothing less than cool.

Will J

215 posts

05 Apr 2008

I've rendered shots from many angles, that one included and it looks really nice. I wish I had time to figure out nice volumetric lights, but i have to get the demo reel together by monday, and I just don't have time for another crash course !

mahmoudnahmad

1,159 posts

06 Apr 2008

hey dude listen if u need any help with your demo reel msg me, i can help you put it together in After Effects. but as i said anything you need from putting all together into ae or music or advice ^_^ never fear moe is here.

Will J

215 posts

08 Apr 2008

Thanks man, I would have Pm'ed you but I got it all done in time and I sent the reel off today ! Thanks anyway, and thanks to everyone who helped me on this, you guys REALLY made it happen.